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tv   CBS Evening News With Katie Couric  CBS  February 16, 2011 5:30pm-6:00pm PST

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homeland security correspondent bob orr is following the investigation. >> reporter: u.s. and mexican officials believe the two ice agents were ambushed by as many as ten gunmen connected to one of mexico's violent drug cartels. sources tell cbs news the thugs specifically targeted the black chevy suburban belonging to the u.s. embassy and baring diplomat plates, but it's unclear if the outlaws knew there were two u.s. agents inside. ice agent jaime zapata, and his partner, victor avila, were traveling on this four-lane divided highway heading for mexico city when the ambush unfolded. this is the way sources say it played out. two cars had been following the agents' s.u.v. for some time when one of the cars suddenly swerved around the s.u.v. and forced it to a stop. the trailing car boxed the agents in a trap. gunmen from the cars then surrounded the s.u.v. sources say when the ice agents rolled down a window to identify themselves, one of the gunmen armed with an automatic weapon
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opened fire. as the agents scrambled to roll up the window, other gunmen opened up on the armor-plated s.u.v. multiple shots raked the passenger side of the embassy vehicle. it's not clear if the agents returned fire or even if they were armed. but they managed to call for help on a cell phone. the gunmen fled. avila, who was shot in the leg, was airlifted to a heavily guarded hospital in mexico city. he returned to the u.s. today. special agent zapata, shot numerous times, died of his wounds. >> earlier this morning, the president called the parents of special agent jaime zapata to send his and michelle's heartfelt condolences on the loss of their son. >> reporter: zapata is the first u.s. law enforcement officer to be killed by a mexican drug cartel in 26 years. in february 1985, drug enforcement agent kiki camarena was kidnapped and tortured by drug traffickers. camarena's body was found a month later, buried in a shallow grave in rural mexico.
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now agents from the f.b.i. and the department of homeland security are joining forces in mexico for the investigation. as you know, the government there has been struggling to combat drug-related violence and there's no doubt the murder of a u.s. agent is a clear escalation. katie? >> couric: and bob, i understand it would be very unusual for the cartels to actually target u.s. agents. >> reporter: well, that's because cartels are primarily about making money, and they know that targeting u.s. agents would bring more attention, more heat, if you will. so while these cartels are known to be brazen, they also know that killing u.s. officials, frankly, is bad for their business. >> couric: and how much pressure will the u.s. put on mexican authorities to find the killers? >> reporter: well, u.s. officials are anxious for justice, but they know this is a mexican investigation. the f.b.i. doesn't want to look like it's throwing its weight around, katie. >> couric: all right, bob orr in washington. thanks so much. turning now to the middle east, cbs news has obtained exclusive pictures that are believed to capture hosni mubarak's final departure from cairo last friday. they show a convoy of cars driving up to a presidential helicopter 90 minutes before it
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was announced he was stepping down as president of egypt. the figure seen waving farewell is thought to be mubarak. and it's believed the chopper carrying his family out of cairo to the egyptian resort city of sharm el-sheik. meanwhile, pro-democracy demonstrations in the middle east continue. today, they spread to yet another country. terry mccarthy with the latest. >> reporter: another day of rage in the middle east as protesters confronted government forces in iran, bahrain, yemen and libya. where antigovernment protests initially broke out yesterday in the second largest city of benghazi. police fired rubber bullets to push back crowds who were calling for the ouster of moammar gadaffi, libya's ruler for 41 years. bahrain saw its third day of demonstrations. cbs radio news reporter toula vlahou was there.
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>> streams of people are just walking-- children, women, men. the traffic naturally has come to a standstill and people have left their cars on sidewalks and they're walking through the square. it's quite extraordinary. >> reporter: in tehran, government supporters confronted mourners at a funeral for a protester who was killed on monday. and in yemen, there were clashes between pro and antigovernment groups outside the university in the capital sanaa and in the city of aiden. in egypt, the army did not fire on protesters, and ultimately they persuaded mubarak to leave. as these protests spread around the region, one of the most decisive factors in each country will be the loyalty of the security forces. so far, military and police forces appear to be staying loyal to their governments. but ahmed galal, who runs a middle east think tank, believes change is now inevitable across the region. >> i know it's not easy, and it's going to take some time.
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i know there may be small setbacks here and there, but fundamentally and increasingly more countries are going to become more open and more democratic. >> reporter: and the protesters are learning from each other. a facebook message is currently going around libya telling people to gather in mosques and march on city squares, just like the egyptians used facebook to coordinate their protests three weeks ago. terry mccarthy, cbs news, cairo. >> couric: we have an update on our chief foreign affairs correspondent lara logan. as we reported, lara was attacked by a mob in cairo last friday as she was covering the egyptian revolution. we're happy to report she's out of the hospital now, continuing her recovery at home. she received a call today from president obama, who expressed his concern. meanwhile, on capitol hill, president obama won a showdown vote today over a costly pentagon program. the house voted not to fund an alternative engine for the f-35. the next generation fighter jet. producing that engine would have cost $3 billion over the next few years.
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budget cuts are also being debated in a lot of state capitals these days, including madison, wisconsin, where more than 10,000 state workers staged a protest today. republican governor scott walker wants them to make greater contributions to their pensions and health insurance. the state faces a deficit of more than $3 billion. now to the perpetrator of the biggest financial fraud in u.s. history. bernard madoff is serving 150 years for ripping off investors to the tune of $65 billion. his ponzi scheme played out over 16 years, and no one was on to him? believe, jim axelrod reports so if you find that hard to believe, jim axelrod reports so does madoff. >> reporter: for 26 months, since bernard madoff's multibillion-dollar ponzi scheme unraveled, one of history's great financial villains claimed he acted alone. now he's telling the "new york times" certain banks and hedge funds were complicit in his fraud, calling it willful blindness.
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they had to know, but the attitude was sort of, "if you're doing something wrong, we don't want to know," madoff said. >> american law treats willful blindness the same as actual knowledge. you can't shut your eyes and avoid having knowledge attributed to you that you would have known had you opened your eyes. >> it stirs up a certain level of anger for me. >> reporter: for george neirenberg, who lost his life savings with madoff, this strengthens his position about the complicity of banks. >> if they had some sort of awareness and had reported it, a lot of people would have been spared a lot of undue hardship in their lives. >> reporter: madoff didn't name specific banks or funds but said he met in prison with irving picard, a court-appointed lawyer trying to recover money for some of madoff's victims and provided picard with useful information. >> he's a very self-serving witness. >> reporter: and maybe the least credible man in america. picard filed a $6.4 billion suit
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against j.p. morgan chase, alleging bankers had concerns about madoff but did nothing. even picard's camp says madoff's story isn't true. they put out a statement today: >> he is at the inner circle of financial hell, and i think he wants other people surrounding him to share the guilt and culpability. he's a man who got to rationalize the suicide of his child. >> reporter: in the interview, madoff said he never asked to attend his son's funeral because it would have created a media circus. he also said no members of his family knew anything about his massive fraud. katie? >> couric: jim axelrod, thanks so much. meanwhile for a company in the book business, it's the saddest chapter of all: chapter 11. boarders filed today for bankruptcy. it will close 200 of its more than 600 stores, and 6,000 employees could lose their jobs. one reason for borders' troubles: it was slow to jump on the e-book wave.
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here's anthony mason. >> reporter: at printing presses like this one in pennsylvania, the e-book is the enemy. >> e-books this year affected our business maybe 8% to 10%. >> reporter: dave lee says his company is printing 50 million fewer books a year here as the prices of e-readers have plummeted, e-book sales are taking off. >> i enjoy just having a whole library in my knapsack. >> reporter: amazon says that on its web site, sales of digital books have now surpassed sales of hardcovers and paperbacks. e-books still account for only about 9% of overall book sales even with that growth, but a recent survey of publishing executives predicts that within just three years, half of all book sales will be e-books. >> it's been much more like a tsunami than like an evolution. >> reporter: these are all your authors? after 40 years in print publishing, jane friedman has started an all-digital company. >> the e-book is the center of the universe.
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the e-book is what it's all about. >> reporter: and open road media is growing fast. how many e-books are you putting out a year? >> we did 420 this year and will do 2,000 next. >> i think that if you're on an airplane and reading a story about your... you're reading a feature about an author and you are one click away to then purchase that author's book, that's best of all possible world. >> reporter: but for bookstores... >> what do you think, it's disastrous. >> reporter: otto penzler owns new york's mysterious book shop. >> that's kept us alive for the last four or five years. >> reporter: but penzler, who sells whodunits, knows he's being stalked by a killer. >> every time somebody buys a kindle or a nook or a sony reader or whatever, it's another nail in the coffin of independent bookshops, including mine. >> reporter: said one store manager, "it's akin to having a buggy whip factory in the era of
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henry ford. you can do it but the writing is on the wall," or in this case, the screen. anthony mason, cbs news, new york. >> couric: and still ahead here on the "cbs evening news," the healing process in tucson. how children are putting the focus on hope. but up next, american fishermen hit with heavy fines and where did the money go? stay tuned.
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>> couric: president obama has vowed to cut unnecessary regulation and he'll get no argument from fishermen in new england who say they're drowning in them. here's armen keteyian. >> reporter: for 37 years, the waters off the coast of massachusetts were a way of life for fisherman bill lee. then without warning tall changed. >> n.o.a.a. took a career i enjoyed and put me out of business and laughed all the way to the bank. >> reporter: n.o.a.a. is short for the national oceanic and atmospheric administration. in 2009 fined lee 19,000 for catching about 20 extra cod fish, nearly three years after
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he caught them, a fine he says destroyed his one-man operation. >> you... they just took... took it away. >> reporter: now dozens of new england fishermen charge their livelihood is at risk. sinking under the weight of 700 pages of confusing federal regulations. >> section b. goes on line one with section two, and section b goes with line four of section one. that's just to tell you can land 800 pounds. >> i mean, you almost have to have a college degree to understand what's going on in this industry. >> reporter: richard burgess says n.o.a.a. told him he had to pay $27,000 because of a problem with his paperwork. >> they just said if i try to fight it and it goes in front of one of their judges, then i most likely will... the fine will be between $120 and $140,000. >> reporter: an investigation by the commerce department's inspector general found the
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regulations were unduly complicated. federal agents overzealous and abusive, excessive fines, including one for $270,000 for administrative errors. >> you know, we're honest, hardworking people and we've been treated as common criminals. >> reporter: the inspector general also found the $30 million in the fishermen paid in fines went to a n.o.a.a. fund with no oversight, used by regulators to buy more cars than there were agents, to pay for trips to fishing conferences in exotic locales, such as australia, malaysia, and norway. and to purchase this $300,000 luxury vessel used by government employees for fishing trips. and according to this memo obtained by cbs news, while under investigation, n.o.a.a. officials in washington had a shredding party destroying garbage bags full of documents. the shredding truck pulled up outside that building where the
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agencies top cop admitted he destroyed 75 to 80% of his files. an investigation found the shredding violated five federal regulations but no evidence of obstructing justice. the man was removed from his job but remains at n.o.a.a. as an analyst, still making a six figure salary. >> we've taken drastic steps. >> reporter: eric schwabb is the new head of fisheries at n.o.a.a. he came to the agency from the maryland department of natural resources, armed with a mandate for change. >> we've worked hard over the last year to identify those problems to, address those problems, and to rebuild that trusting and productive relationship that we need with fishermen. >> it is crucial. >> reporter: for some, like senator charles grassley, change can't come soon enough. >> i want to make sure that heads roll because, you know, in a bureaucracy, if heads don't roll, you don't change behavior. >> reporter: now a judge is reviewing at least 31 cases of fishermen caught up in the government's net to see if some
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of the fines should be returned. armen keteyian, cbs news, washington. >> couric: and coming up next, the painful, personal secret massachusetts senator scott brown kept for four decades. ,,,,
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>> couric: republican scott brown burst on to the national stage last year when he won the u.s. senate seat that had belonged to democrat ted kennedy, but there's something
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almost no one knew about brown, a secret he had been keeping for 40 years until he spoke with lesley stahl for this sunday's "60 minutes." >> reporter: back in his hometown of wakefield, mass, he tells us how he suffered as a little boy from physical and psychological abuse at the hands of his mother's many husbands. but when scott was ten, he experienced another kind of abuse at the hands of a camp councilor. you tell us that you were actually sexually abused. more than once. >> yup. fortunately, nothing was ever fully consummated so to speak but it was certainly back then very traumatic. he said, "if you tell anybody, i'll kill you." >> couric: you can see more of lesley's interview with senator brown this sunday on "60 minutes." and coming up next, out of tragedy, pictures of hope.
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passengers for years. but now a woman is behind bars. who ratted her out next on cbs 5 the device helping chemo >> couric: these are busy days for arizona congresswoman gabrielle giffords as she continues her recovery from an assassination attempt. on the "early show" today pia carusone pishe understands what's happeng around her and laughs at the appropriate time but she still knows little about the shooting
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in tucson nearly six weeks ago. si six people were killed, and 13 wounded in that attack, and the entire city is going through a healing process. including the children. ben tracy now on how they're finding hope after the tragedy. >> reporter: nine-year-old juan coronel sees signs of trouble. graffiti in his tucson neighborhood makes him worry. >> i always feel like it's unsafe for me to be around it. i always get scared something might happen. >> reporter: something did happen. >> 911, where is the emergency? >> reporter: when a gunman shot and killed six people in tucson, the youngest was nine-year-old christina taylor green, the same age as jaun and many of his classmates. >> she's young, like, why take a little person's life away? >> how many of you have taken photographs? >> reporter: celebrity photographer linda solomon is trying to help these fourth graders focus on their future
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not their fear. >> i wanted to be able to give the children a chance to share something, something that sometimes is difficult to express verbally. >> reporter: so each child wrote down his or her hope for america. >> my hope for america is help homeless people. >> my hope is for a peaceful country. >> stop fighting with people. >> reporter: they were given the tools to capture that hope through one single image. ten-year-old yami vega showed the local donation center. >> it's pretty sad that we have clothes, houses and other people don't. >> reporter: daijha hawley took her picture of forgiveness. juan photographed that graffiti. what did this mean to you? >> i think this means that it could-- the world can be a better place. >> reporter: the photos will become greeting cards to raise money for the christina green charitable fund. >> i like this one. >> reporter: suzi hileman, the neighbor who took christina to meet her congresswoman that fateful saturday helped pick out the best work. she had to write down her dream, what do you think christina would have said? >> can i say that i think
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christina would have said peace and justice which is what was on her sweatshirt that saturday morning. >> reporter: and this is what tucson's healing looks like. >> i have a hole in my life for a nine-year-old. will you be it? will you fill it for me? >> reporter: connecting through tragedy and forming a new picture of hope. >> couric: and that is the cbs evening news. i'm katie couric. thank you for watching. i'll see back here tomorrow. good night. captioning sponsored by cbs captioned by media access group at wgbh access.wgbh.org you're watching cbs5 eyewitness news. "this broadcast realtime captioned by becky lyon." his job bust drug dealers. his home for the night a bay area jail cell. what a top narcotics officer is accused of after an undercover sting. her job. how police used her position at
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the airport to steal a whole lot of credit card numbers. hot on the heels of scenes like this. look out. because here comes storm number 3. good evening, i'm dana king. >> i'm allen martin. named the safest city in america but tonight the money situation is so bad in san jose that is warning of massive layoffs. >> reporter: keep in mind we are talking about a worst-case scenario here but that worst case is pretty bleak here in san jose when you are talking about laying off a quarter of the public safety officers, police and fire in the city. out of the gates and onto the streets is how police officers report for duty. but with massive layoffs looming there could be hundreds of fewer officers patrolling san jose. >> the worst-case scenario 329 officers could potentially be impacted. >> reporter: the department's new chief whose first act may
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have to be reconstructing a much smaller department. >> if you think about our patrol force itself is roughly 560. half the patrol force would be gone. certainly that would be supplemented by people coming in from other parts of the department but it is a significant piece of our department. >> reporter: it is affecting all departments. 149 firefighters might also lose their jobs this year. in fact, nothing is secure as san jose tries to close a $130 million budget deficit. >> we are looking at what we could see record number of layoffs throughout the organization just simply to be able to afford to pay the bills that we have. >> reporter: the council member saying it is a path to bankruptcy if nothing is done. there will be further program cuts and service reductions and council plans to ask its unions for salary cuts and pension reform. ideas the public supported in the last election. >> hate to see anybody lose their job right now and if it could save someone's job if everybody takes a little bit of a cut then

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